Air passenger bridges are sufficiently well known from the prior art. Air passenger bridges are used for transferring persons from the airplane directly into the airport terminal. Since the airport terminal is usually higher than the door opening of the airplane, the air passenger bridges, which are held on the front end by an undercarriage, frequently run diagonally downward in the direction of the door opening of the airplane. At the lower end of the passenger bridge the air passenger bridge exhibits a cabin that can be rotated up to 90° to the longitudinal axis of the air passenger bridge, wherein on the front end a dome module is arranged for transfer from the cabin to the airplane. In similar fashion a dome module is also provided for air passenger stairs as an interface for transfer to the airplane.
The dome module as an interface between the actual air passenger bridge or the air passenger stairs and the airplane comprises according to the prior art a floor as well as a U-shaped bellows spanning the floor as a roof. The bellows likewise exhibits a so-called U-shaped rotary bumper, wherein the bellows, in order to ensure contact over the entire area of the U-shaped bellows on the front end on the skin of the airplane, can be moved out to variable extents on both sides. This problem is, in and of itself, sufficiently known. Regarding the floor it is known from the prior art that the floor exhibits a stationary element and a floor head part, said floor head part as a whole being horizontally displaceable relative to the stationary floor element. However, this means that when such a dome module is attached in the region of the front end of an airplane, that is, in the region of the transition to the cockpit, a gap then remains at least in the direction of the cockpit. When the airplane door swings open outward, the gap or at least a part of the gap is covered by the airplane door upward. If this is not the case, that is, if the door for example opens inward, then a barrier must be used to prevent persons from getting into the region of this gap. In this respect it is also known to design the floor in two parts, wherein the one part of the floor is outwardly pivotable in the direction of the airplane. It can be immediately understood that with such a solution on the one hand a formation of a gap between the fuselage of the airplane and the front side of the floor can be lessened but not completely prevented.